Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Tips and Tricks for photographing Autumn...

Photojojo have posted 12 Fantastic Fall Photo Tips, that I thought maybe useful for our pending Photo Theme.

Its mainly 'leaf' based but could provide some guidance, even though the leaves in Madrid appear to be taking their time to change colour and fall this year.....!!!

Thursday, 11 October 2007

Another dimension to Photography: Water



I like to spend my time wisely (not really but it sounds good) so I try to combine two of my hobbies, photography and diving together to do underwater photography :-)

There is lots of info out there on the web. But there is one particular very nice online magazine called Underwater Photography . It has many beautiful photos (even for non-divers!) and items on material and many tips/tricks. (no, i'm not getting anything to say that).

btw. above picture was taken by me last year in one of the dutch lakes ;-)

Thursday, 4 October 2007

12 Essential Phtoto Rules from Popular Photography...

In the past we have spoken about the sunny-16 rule, but do you know the moony 11, 8 and 5.6 ..?? (steady Richard.. ;-) )

You want a new digital camera which has a least twice the resolution of the last one, did you know you have to find one with 4 times more megapixels...!

Either way check out what Popular Photography thinks are the 12 Essential Photographic Rules...

Tuesday, 2 October 2007

Are you a Flickr-holic...?

Flickr has always been a bit of a talking point, what with advertising agencies rocketing unsuspecting photographers into the limelight, like this for example..... or those agencies with not quite so many scruples taking advantage of the overwhelming number of low cost images (i.e. taking them for free) and using them for national ad campaigns like this case with Virgin Mobile Australia

As an image resource and source of inspiration, you can't complain too much because there are plenty of images to see, but how do you sort the "wheat" from the "chaff" and get to those 'wow' images with the maximum efficiency, Howard French tells us what he does over on the Online Photographer...

Seam carving and resizing images...



This has begun to appear on a few different websites and I thought that you maybe interested in this new way of resizing images without distorting the content. I'll let the author explain the details in the video (your going to be amazed for sure...!).

For those of you who are not mathematically challenged there's a whitepaper that explains the concept in detail.

The website is here and you can even upload a picture and try out the software online.

Apparently one of the authors has been recently employed by Adobe, so we may see this appear in future versions of Photoshop and/or Lightroom.

Sunday, 30 September 2007

Chase Jarvis on Commercial Photography...



I'm a big fan of this guys photography and its good to see a top professional sharing his idea's and giving us a glimpse into the hectic world of the Advertising/Commercial Photographer...

He has a number of online videos that show us what he gets upto on his photo shoots... he always looks like he has a good time (and just like a few members of our club he gets to go to windswept and exotic destinations rather often as well :-D...).. You can find them here if your interested :

New Zealand Shoot
Hasselblad Masters
Ninja Shoot

He's also a bit of a techy and DIY man, check out what he did to create a Photographers Laptop Case...

Anyway, back to the video above, which is his presentation at a 'do' for Photoshelter (an online image library) where he explains what it takes to be a Commercial Photographer, its almost an hour long so you should probably order a pizza before hand, but its packed full of spectacular images and idea's if you have the time to sit down and watch...

Wednesday, 26 September 2007

"Ocultos"

Hi all.

The "Círculo de Bellas Artes" opened yesterday an exhibition called "Stellar moments of the 20th century photography" (free translation from the spanish title :) ), including pictures by Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Riefenstahl, Man Ray, Andy Warhol, Marina Abramovic and many others. I haven't visited it yet, but sounds interesting. Just for you to know.

For more info (sorry, in Spanish) : http://www.circulobellasartes.com/ag_expo.php?ele=38

El Círculo de Bellas Artes is in C/ ALCALÁ, 42, Madrid.

(The picture is 'Rituales en Haití' (2001), by Cristina Garcia Rodero.)

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

keeping track of new posts more easily...

Hi, In reply to an earlier question (on the mail). It is possible to subscribe (with your favourite rss-feed reader; e.g. google reader) to the ATOM (RSS) feed (there is a tiny link at the bottom of the blog page) for the ESAC Photo Club and then you can keep up (more easily?) with the new items posted. Good luck, Nick

Monday, 24 September 2007

Travel Photography Inspiration...

The 'Canon Digital Learning Centre' is currently hosting a series from the well know travel and nature photographer, Art Wolfe, here on its website.

As I know a lot of you enjoy this type of photography, I thought you maybe interested.. There's lots of info and advice mixed with a fair amount of Arts' stunning imagery..

P.S How many of you spotted the seagull in the image above ?

Friday, 21 September 2007

Mark Tucker...

I have long been a fan of the imagery of Mark Tucker, a prominent portrait and lifestyle photographer.

His use of tilt-shift lenses , overlaying of textures, compositional techniques and humour never cease to amaze me..

His website has recently been updated so if you have a few minutes to spare mosey on over and take a look...

Latest Flipbook from George Lange...

We've seen the work of George Lange in the past (see March entry), and I admit I'm quite partial to this type of presentation.

This time the images are from Israel and he promises that he has more in the pipeline. Anyway, check out the movie here if you feel so inclined.

Maybe I'll try this for the next Photoclub presentation, at least people can't complain about the amount of time it takes to show all the images..! ;-)

Thursday, 20 September 2007

HDRI Updates....

Remember in the past we have talked about High Dynamic Range Imaging, which had its origins in CGI Graphic artist industry and is now finding its way more and more into photography.?

I just discovered a new website "HDRI News" which is dedicated to the theme, and that also offers software, news, an online community and lots of inspirational images...


You might also want to take a look at "Digital Outback Photo" as well, which is pioneering new HDRI techniques using DSLRs with fast frame rates (> 5fps), thereby eliminating the need for a tripod and opening up the opportunity for using HDRI without limitations...

Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Adventures in Greenland...

It would seem that the list of 'windswept and exotic' locations to which our photoclub members travel continues to grow, the latest being to Greenland.......

Benjamin tells us about his latest adventure :
"I would like to share with you an image of one of the most impressive and powerful landscapes I have ever seen. This is a glacier at the south of Greenland. Its name is Eqalurissit. It is about 2.5 km wide and the ice walls are about 100 meters tall. The ice tongue enters towards the interior of the island in what it is called the 'indlansis', a word of scandinavian origin that means any glacier field of the type 'continental ice' with extensions of more than 50.000 squared km. In this case, the tongue merges with the ice platform that covers around 85% of the surface of Greenland"

Thursday, 13 September 2007

We're back.........

The blog entries have been a bit sparse recently, but the summer is almost over and we have had our latest presentation of Photojournalistic and Holiday images..

Head on over to our galleries page and take a look. I know writing comments can be difficult but if you feel inspired I do urge you to do so as they are very motivational.

Also, if comments aren't your thing, hover your mouse pointer over the images you like and click the green thumbs up that will appear.... Why you ask.?????.... Because smugmug will then tell me what are the favorite images (I can't see who clicked on what by the way), and I thought it might be a good excuse to hand out some prizes at the end of the year... (Don't forget to give your 'thumbs up' in the other galleries as well...)

Anyway, here are a few of the images that got the most wow's during the presentation...... Go to the gallery page to find out who the culprits are...



Friday, 1 June 2007

PHotoEspaña 2007 has started....


The annual image festival in Madrid has started and being as it is the 10th Anniversary there even more exhibitions and activities than normal.

I have already been to see the images made by Sebastião Salgado in the BBVA (AZCA) building and they are stunning.

I've also downloaded the press kit in pdf, which contains all the info on which exhibition is where. If anyone wants a copy let me know.

Anyway, head over to www.phedigital.com for all the details.

Wednesday, 9 May 2007

Another exhibition...


As a further addition to the blog entry from Ricardo, there is also another tattoo related exhibition at the 'Casa de América' in Madrid, called 'Maras'. Providing a insight into the world of young prisoners in El Salvador jails who use their tattoo's as a form of self expression.

Its free to enter and is on until the 27th May, further details can be seen by clicking the link above.

Tuesday, 8 May 2007

Nice photo exhibition


FYI:
Javier Ortiz, "Pachi", exhibits a series of photos portraying tattooed people called "Tattoos Tuus".

You can have a look at it (and a beer :) ) at La Maripepa, c/ Jesús, 7, in the Huertas area, Madrid.

I visited it last weekend and I found it quite interesting.

Thursday, 26 April 2007

Theme 2 - 'Architecture'...

Once again an excellent turnout for our second theme presentation of 2007. Nine members showed their interpretations of 'Architecture', and above is a choice selection of some of the photo's (click image to see larger). There was a lot of discussion regarding technique and composition and I think we all learned a new thing or two.

Don't forget that you can see all the images on the clubs Gallery webpage (link is at the top right of this page). Please do leave comments as it is always helpful and motivating to get a bit of feedback every now and again...

Finally, you all chose an extremely difficult theme for next time... 'Photojournalism'. It is going to be extremely interesting to see what images everyone turns up with...

I'm really looking forward to seeing all your photo's in June and hoping for an even larger participation..!

Monday, 23 April 2007

one web album I like :-)

I was browsing the picasa web albums a bit (for inspiration) and thought this guys pictures are quite good, so I thought I share this link with all you photography lovers :-)

I find it amazing how many good photographers there are out there....

http://picasaweb.google.com/bholfeltz/FlickrPretty

Looking forward to see everyones pictures tomorrow :-)

Nick

Wednesday, 18 April 2007

Pulitzer 2007


Hi everybody

As all of you probably know, the Pulitzer prize awards relevant works in journalism. This year, the prize in the category of "breaking news photography" has gone to Oded Bality for this picture.

A sin the previous post about photography and ethics, I will say nothing else about it and let you judge by yourselves. The picture is impressing anyway.

You can read the full record in

http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/breaking-news-photography/works/